A politically incorrect blog by Joey Ayoub

Jimmy Wales and Palestine

I’ve had a discussion with Jimmy “Jimbo” Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, concerning the fact that he was participating in the Israeli Presidential Conference despite the international call of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement. Thought I’d share it with you. I’ll talk more about the Palestinian *issue* in other posts.

I don’t find it polite to answer with a link (that I’ve already read).

I am well aware of the disgusting human rights record of my country. I have on numerous occasions shown my support for gay rights and migrant rights among others. My country is deeply divided among sectarian lines and I’ve participated in the last two secularism marches which shows its support to all forms of human rights, from religious freedom to gay rights to women rights.

That being said, how is that relevant to my question? I asked if it were true – I’m guessing it is – that you are participating in the Israeli presidential meeting despite Israel’s continuous violation of international law and human rights abuse which include land theft and murder of civilians – all of which are widely documented and are near-daily occurences ?

Best regards,

Joey.

___________________________

Jimmy Wales. Monday 20th of June, 2011. At 7:20

What’s your point?

___________________________

Joey H. Ayoub. Monday 20th of June, 2011. At 7:41

I thought it was obvious. I was wondering how you could stand in the same room with people who are committing theft and mass murder on innocent civilians, most of which are guilty of pacifism and simply existing. Countless activists and men and women who care about humanity are doing their best to stop what is being inflicted upon the Palestinians because they can see the inhumanity of the situation. To simply do nothing and shake blood-soaked hands and ignore the whole thing is akin to those who didn’t care about the injustice inflicted upon black South Africans during the Apartheid era. The world is sick of Apartheid and doesn’t want to take part in it, despite how powerful the oppressors are. And we are asking you to join us.

___________________________

Jimmy Wales. Monday 20th of June, 2011. At 9:42

How about those rockets? Complaining any about those?

___________________________

Joey H. Ayoub. Monday 20th of June, 2011. At 10:31

You’re still deflecting sir. Yes, actually I am complaining about those. I’m kind of disappointed to be honest. I’d have thought the founder of Wikipedia wouldn’t use common apologist answers.

The rockets have been condemned as far as I’m aware by the international community, with a few idiotic exceptions as usual.

It still doesn’t justify anything. Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians are the oppressed. Complaining about rockets when Israel has tanks, missiles, chemical weapons, a navy, aircraft and nuclear weapons is like complaining that they actually dare to fight back and would not just die and rid us of their existence.

4000 homes destroyed and over 50,000 civilians displaced from their homes.

The Gaza blockade is illegal, inhuman and disgusting and is making the lives of Palestinians a living hell comparable to those of the Jews who lived in the Nazi ghettos. A good description of the situation can be given by the ISM activist Rachel Corrie who also has a Wikipedia article and who was killed 8 years ago by an IDF bulldozer.

“What I’m witnessing here is a very systematic destruction of a people’s ability to survive”

I get reports, sir, and testimonies of what is going on in Palestine, especially in Gaza, on a daily basis, from activists and locals. I get to wake up in my comfortable bed, have a lovely breakfast and then read or watch what happened the day before, hoping that someone I know didn’t die. Two did.

I urge you to learn about the facts and look at the evidence because if there is anything that we can learn from history, it’s that the horrors committed by anyone will eventually be revealed to the whole public; the propaganda will not last eternally. It is becoming increasingly difficult to defend Israel without resorting to some sort of racist and fascist arguments that portray Palestinians as being dirty and evil by nature and therefore OK to destroy.

Palestinians are being murdered on a daily basis. The rate of Israeli civilians killed to Palestinian civilians killed is around 1-100 at the very least. That’s what we call a massacre, sir.

I’m guessing it’s bad for business to speak out for the voiceless. They don’t have money, they don’t even have houses so I guess they can’t ask for your support. I also know that Wikimania 2011 is happening in Haifa – the place where my grandmother was born – which might be the reason why you keep on answering with pointless sentences and questions.

I don’t even know if you’re actually aware of the situation or if you just deny it for profit. Either way, as someone who uses Wikipedia on a daily basis, I have to say that I’m disappointed that propaganda or pseudo-knowledge has triumphed, in your case, ironically, over knowledge.

The reason I’m asking you to not participate in the Israeli Presidential Conference is not out of hatred for Israel or Israelis. Many of the activists I mentioned are Jewish Israelis after all. The reason, which should be obvious, is that the people whom you will meet and, by saying nothing, will approve of their actions are responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. You will be remembered as someone who did collaborate with Apartheid.

Best regards,

Joey

___________________________

When I later checked my inbox, I found out that he blocked me.

Mr. Wales will be the last speaker at the Israeli Presidential Conference on the 21st of June (today) afternoon in the presence of Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu. Other speakers include Tony Blair and Henry Kissinger.

“Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing.” - Jimmy Wales

Update 26/03/2012:

I was asked to provide a screen shot of the actual discussion and here it is. He can be found on Facebook with ‘Wikia’ as his network.

Joey: Wikipedia has nothing to do with Jimmy Wales. The amazing people who do the hard work are volunteers and the information you get from most articles are very well-sourced, especially the scientific articles which can be very advanced. I wouldn’t get my history from Wikipedia because even sources can be misrepresented on purpose or not, but for the rest I don’t see why not.

If it is not a pbliuc issue, then government does not belong in it privacy is what the government calls something that is none of its business. Public=government.You want the Israeli government to be someone’s personal security blanket, so someone will not be traumatized by a risk of violent death. But you reject the likelihood of the person in Gaza being traumatized by events much more serious than a risk by actual deaths by the hundred. This line of thought arrives at might makes right where your feelings are more important than other people’s. This is fine in your private life, but you can’t run a government like this. Law has to be reasonable or the state collapses. People have to be able to believe that the government is behaving reasonably which means that a disinterested person finds it fair like events are treated alike .So we arrive at the separation of church and state, the equal treatment of the laws. It is a plan for government based on the assumption that people can and will distinguish things that government can do something about from those it can’t, or how much can be done in the given case.For example, reasonable law assumes that murder is worse than theft, and theft is worse than littering. You take the case of the Pakistan blasphemy law and you wonder, how could blasphemy ever justify killing someone whom would it hurt that much? The answer would have to be that the population could be demoralized driven crazy by the blasphemy so that much worse things than one person’s death by violence could result. Then someone should be allowed to ask, how do you know this what is this demoralization, this craziness you predict how would this work?You end up with limited government to prevent murders, so citizens can solve social problems without fear of violence. Then to prevent theft, so people can take care of themselves, which in turn creates the time to solve social problems. Then to prevent littering, so people are not discouraged by the ugliness of the environment so as to miss some inspirations to improve their personal situations, and in turn lose out on chances to improve the lot of society at large. Could litter ever be worse than murder? In the general case, no, and law has to deal in the general case.Identity comes below littering. What can government do to help my identity? As you say, it’s none of the pbliuc’s business.

Yea there are a lot of problems with history on Wikipedia. For example, the narrative of the Battle of Deir Yassin is that it was a massacre, something completely contradicting what the actual villagers who lived there say.

First i want to tell you how much i appreciate your humanity, not only as a Palestinian, as a Human being. I am a Christian Palestinian born in Haifa. The Holocaust was in Europe! The word “anti-Semitic” was born in Europe. Terrorism was introduced in the holy land by Fascist Zionists, from Europe.

Last week a 6 years old boy walking alone was going home, IDF followed him, hid in the back of the house, tripped and blindfolded the child, hurled him in their car, he was interrogated from 6.30 pm to 9.00 pm. without the presence of his parents.
When his father learned about this he thought it was a prank.

I read Mr.Wales “very arrogant” answers ..such as (what’s your point?) and i am not interested in his opinion about Palestinian suffering. To say he is against apartheid, hes for gay rights, women rights etc..are clichés. He has a very constructive Wikipedia in all other domains its TRUE, but he’s a businessman he has to be on the side of the most powerful, he is emotionless and quite ignorant about Middle- East History, as are all in the Western World in general, (not the Scholars).

If it wasn’t for the Arabs (the Hashemite rulers of Arabia), British negociator
Colonel Lawrence “Laurence of Arabia”, the West could not have won WW1.
There would not have been a “British mandate of Palestine”.
There would not have been the ”Balfour Declaration” (Balfour was an anti-Semite).

Mr.Wales talks about Hamas rockets is Very superficial, Mossad created Hamas
in 1983 as a rival to secular Arafat PLO. Without the past there is no future!
During Armenian Genocide 60.000 fled to Palestine, to live in peace and security,
were there was no cleavages between Moslems and Christians as in neighboring Lebanon. Pierre Gemayel, the father of Lebanon President Bashir Gemayel,
came to Palestine for his studies in the 1920’s to Saint Joseph College, in Haifa.

If he doesn’t have knowledge of the past (post-WW1 Palestinian History)
what is he talking about “Hamas rockets” today?
Israel destroyed the Palestinian Social Fabric.
In 1948 Israel systematically collected more 70.000 Palestinian books, in order
to forbid new Palestinian generation ( those who remained), to learn about
their Culture, and bar them from their memories.
As an Intellectual, Mr. Wales should be revolted at “The Great Book Robbery”.

Henry Kissinger was asked what he tought about Israel in the (sixties?) he said;
“if i knew then what i know now, i would have said that Israel was not the solution
for the Jewish Problem”.

Did Mr. Wales read the letter Istzhak Shamir wrote to Hitler in 1941, offering his
LEHI combattants to fight alongside the Third Reich, against the British in WW2 ?

Did he read Albert Einstein letter to the Editor NYT December, 1948
warning as a prophet about the newly created Israeli state?
It’s too late now for Palestine. If this is Mr. Wales attitude you are wasting your
time Mr. Ayoub.

Everybody on this Planet is contributing to this…hundreds of volunteers etc..
But the Founder is pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian. Publicly he speaks about the questions of Money. It will become the Babel Tower because of his big Ego.
regarding the Palestinian-Israeli problem.

You never told me where those Jews that the Arabs aakecttd in pre-State Palestine came from ? At different times, from Israel/Palestine, from Europe, from North Africa/Middle East. The majority of Israelis that are there now were born there, not all that different from Palestinian migration between other parts of the Arab world. What were their intentions in Palestine ? Mostly, to live, to establish a nation (definition 4), a very few intentionally to expel. How come, with Zionists, we never hear the beginning of the story. There were no attacks againt Jews before the Balfour-declaration when the indigenous population realized that those Europeans had come to take over the land. Too bad, the ?savages? didn?t just pack ?their tents? and go off to live elsewhere. There were pre-Balfour civil conflicts in the region, attacks against Jews. Aside from that, you ask where did it start? It starts in the present, in the decision of how do we live now? What can we do now that will make life mutually acceptable? ?The Jews they drove out?: less than 10.000 Jews were driven out from the Arab territories, and where were most of these Jews born ? Most were born in Israel/Palestine. The residents of Hebron, Jerusalem, Safed were ancient. The residents of some of the new purchased settlements were authorized by the Ottomans and British to reside and purchase land. Right-wing or left-wing political Zionists, what?s the difference in the narrative ? Right-wing desire some straddle of risk aversion with opportunism. Left-wing desire to live and let live.

Okay. To which naiotn did the land upon which Israel constructed suburbs of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv belong? If the answer is to none, then the reality is that Israel had the right both the claim the land and to build upon it. There is a false assumption that what was not recognized as being part of Israel pre-1967 was therefore taken away from a Palestinian State. There was no Palestinian state to take it from. Israel took the land from Jordan which later ceded it. That everyone else in the world, it seems, wants that land to be a part of Palestinian state today does not mean that it WAS part of a Palestinian state then. The ONLY legitimate place to begin negotiations on any topic is with the status quo. To have negotiations begin with the false assumption that there WAS a Palestinian state and that the Palestinians have the ability to negotiate AS IF that land belonged to a Palestinian state is ludicrous. The negotiations are truly between Israel and the Arab League for the creation of something that has never previously existed, well two things, a Palestinian state and peace between the Arab naiotns and a Jewish state. THAT is what negotiations should be about and the only assumption should be the status quo because everything else is but vanity.Meanwhile, the REALITY is that there are hundreds of thousands of Jewish Israelis on the other side of those lines. We can argue about the sanity of the decision to build isolated settlements, but some of the areas settled are legitimate suburbs of major population centers and other areas are legitimately security concerns. Negotiations have to deal with that reality.

Joey: I will not deal with history because any person who gives the slighest damn would bother with really searching. My grandmother was born in Haifa, Palestine. To deny the historical reality of Palestine is as disgusting as denying the reality of the Armenian or Jewish or other Holocausts. Imagine yourself sitting with a 90 year-old man who has inherited his land from his ancestors and telling him that he’s not really what he thinks he is.
Illegal settlements are being built on a daily basis.
“The ONLY legitimate place to begin negotiations on any topic is with the status quo.” I’m sorry to say but that’s just cowardly.
Palestinians are having their land stolen – and, occasionally, their loved ones murdered – and Israeli settlers are told to move in. Saying that these people have to get over it and just accept that their land is shrinking before starting “negotiations” in which they have nothing to negotiate is just plain immoral.
Protest against the illegal settlements instead of shamelessly treating them as some sort of inevitable natural phenomenon.
I’ve talked about the rest in my discussion with Wales so I won’t repeat myself.

My (jewish) mother was born in Tunsia and was evicted from her home by the treatment of the local population, forced to immigrate somewhere, anywhere. Perhaps it is fair to start the negotiations there? Are you willing to give back property robbed of from Jewish diaspora in North Africa, Yemen, Iraq, Iran? Let’s start our negotiations there.
I have an even better idea let’s start the negotiations with the biblical state of Israel in the time of king david (see – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_Israel_and_Judah). Seems reasonable?
History is full of injustices on both sides. That’s not an excuse but a mere fact. Presently the Israeli people are enjoying a better predicament. If you were to measure historical injustice by any reasonable metric you will see that this a reasonably new turn of affairs.

We need to focus on the present, by finding constructive solutions allowing both the Palestinian and Israeli people their rights to self definition and existence. The Jewish people have no other place on earth to call a home except their ancestral homeland, yet we are willing to cede from many parts of this land in exchange for a lasting peace accord and the recognition for our right to a state. The sort of destructive arguments you invoke above are the main reasons this circle of violence is perpetuated.
Check your facts, read your histories. Stop blindly listening to the propaganda on both sides.

The reason I mentioned ‘Haifa, Palestine’ was not to deny the present ‘Haifa, Israel’. I’m not an Anti-Zionist, I just think that most of the good arguments of Zionism are not being used by Zionists who instead are mainly relying on intimidation, force and lobbying (AIPAC) which is discrediting Zionism in itself. I’m sorry to disappoint you but she was born in Palestine. What Palestine was at the time at least.
That being said, even if I were an anti-Zionist, that still wouldn’t mean that I am against Israel’s existence. It would mean that I don’t find Zionism to have valid arguments, which I do. It would not have anything to do whatsoever with whether or not I hate Jews – I don’t even know what that means. Lebanese are Semites from what I’ve heard.
I’ve got quite a few good friends from Israel. Plus, one of my favorite journalists is Amira Hass and one of my favorite modern historians is Ilan Pappe – it’s sad that I have to say this as if I was defending myself.

Who’s merkeda ..who’s who? I don’t know what’s going on, a political blog?.
Why am i asked to “Leave a Reply to merkeda ? I don’t even know what
“merkeda” aid.
Have a good life Wicked -Pedia !
I dont predict you an academic life regarding History in the Middle East !

To Andrea
“Haifa Palestine” is also where my Grand Parents, myself and my ancestors
were born.
You say about Hummus grand mother; “the first time she heard Palestine was probably from a Jew or a Briton”???

Were did you hear about Palestine for the fist time Please?
From the Zionist movement? Jewish National Agency IN EUROPE? Theodore Herzl?
Or Russian Fascist Revisionist Zeev Jabotinsky, 12 yrs old Menahem Begin Master ?

In fifth cent. BC.,(when the Earth was flat an no Ottoman Empire around), Herodotus
the first historian in Western Civilization, referenced “Palestine numerous times in chronicles of Ancient World, ‘The Histories’, including the following describing
“Syrians of Palestine” “..they live in the coastal parts of Syria, and that Region of Syria, and all that lies between it and Egypt is called Palestine.” (VII.89)

Despite the claim “the Romans didn’t rename Judea ans Samaria as Palestina until
1 hundred years after the death of Jesus”, contemporaries of Jesus routinely referred to Palestine.
Josephus (C37-100CE) contain copious references to Palestine and Palestinians.
In the first decade of the first cent., the Roman poet Ovid mentioned Palestine.

In fourth cent. B.C. Aristotle made reference to Palestine in his “Meteorology. In mid-2nd cent. Poleimon ancient Geographer wrote of a place “not far from Arabia in the part of Syria called Palestine”.

Are you promoting BDS for Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, China, Russia, Sri Lanka etc. etc. etc? Each with its own long and continuing history of minority suppression and/or ethnic removal played out on a scale that dwarfs Israel in intensity and/or reach. No only Israel. Odd don’t you think. There is no reasonable justification for singling out only Israel for this type of treatment?

Jimmy Wales blocked you because he couldn’t stand being in the same email exchange as a hypocritical Lebanese, i.e. “with people who are committing theft and mass murder on innocent civilians.” Works the same way doesn’t it? Lebanese Hezbollah did after all kill dozens of civilians with rocket attacks in 2006.

Search hummusforthought for “Syria” on Google and it returns 46 results. Search “Israel” and it returns 278! Even though the Assad regime has already — and recently — far exceeded the civilian casualties of the Israelis in compared to the Gaza War three years ago. (And with far less justification, seeing as Assad’s primary targets are civilian protestors, whereas the Israelis target rocket-launching terrorist cells.) Do you think the Syrians telephone civilians and drop leaflets to warn them before they strike, as the Israelis did in Gaza? Yet the Jews are more deserving of opprobrium here, and deserve more than six times the number of posts than the Syrians.

You’re a tribalist dressed in human rights garb, a sham secularist who uses it as a pretext to give voice to your prejudices in neutral-sounding terms to better appeal to the west. But your disproportionate focus on Israel gives your game away, and reveals a deep-seated antagonism against Jews. Racist much?

Is this suppose to be Wiki-ncyclopedia? Were is History? This is Babel Tower.
History is not Fiction.
Not only it doesn’t contribute to J.Wales pretentious ambitions to enlighten Humanity,
it’s darkening it. Hatred an propaganda. I am Palestinian from Haifa. Jerusalem dates
from the Stone Age! It was already a city of worship to a Great God before David Conquest in 10Th cent.B.C. Even Before Abraham entered Canaan.
Shalem in Genesis before the Bible, The Desert of Shem is the Desert of Noah and the Bible, Land of the Semitic race Arab and Jews. Still on the Map today Desert of Sham; 5000 years old Damascus. (Sham in Arabic) or Aramean.

I got lots of replies, which is good. Thank you all.
Assad is a mass-murdering lunatic. My friend’s mother was murdered by his forces 3 weeks ago so I take it very personally if anyone dares to say that I somehow sympathize with him. It just so happens that I had Jimmy Wales as a friend and could discuss with him the Israeli government’s crimes since he was participating in a conference with high-ranking officials in the Israeli government – the discussion is a year-old. He was very polite and articulate as you can see in this discussion.
I mentioned Israel three times after that in my blog. Once in the Apartheid Week post, but that’s really more about Palestine than Israel, once in the ‘Iran is the new Iraq’ post where I’ve criticized the international community for hypocrisy vis-a-vis nuclear weapons and once in the ‘Israel loves Iran’ post where I’ve applauded many Israelis’ efforts for peace talks rather than warmongering propaganda.
I was never called a ‘tribalist’ before. I’m not sure what tribe I belong to to be honest but I guess there’s a first time for everything.
Thank you for your leaflets, I’m sure the dead children appreciate it.

Yet you fail to address the gravamen of our comments: that you’re a hypocrite for not boycotting Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and so on. You reserve special opprobrium for the Jews. This makes you a racist. There is nothing hypocritical about the international community’s reaction to Iran. Iran is a signatory to the NPT. Unlike the following countries, which are not: India, Pakistan, Israel.

Iran doesn’t get to label itself a non-nuclear weapons state in exchange for assistance in nuclear technology under the NPT only to weaponize that technology in violation of its treaty obligations once expertise was transferred. As a signatory, Iran’s obligations are different from those of non-signatories. The international community isn’t hypocritical in treating Iran differently. The only hypocrisy here is yours.

The irony is that Wales would be perfectly justified in boycotting you under your own logic.

Stop it! Talking about present tensions is not addressing past History (if this is supposed to be an encyclopedia, ha hah…! Remember there is no future without
the past.

Letter that Albert Einstein sent to the Stern gang when it solicited him to raise fund
in United Stated.

April 10,1948
Mr. Shepperd Rifkin
exec. Director American Friends of the Fighters
for Freedom in Israel
149 Second Ave.
New York 3,N.Y.

Dear Sir:

When a real and final catastrophe should befall in Palestine the first responsible for
it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorists 0rganization build up from our own ranks.
I am not be willing to see anybody associated with mislead and criminal people.

Sincerely yours, Albert Einstein
(signed) 10 April was only ONE day after Deir Yassin massacre by Stern terror gang.

you can compare bashar alassad to sadam hussein, and syria to iraq, because the oppressor here is one of their own and the motive is ultimate power for a dictator..israel’s actions on the other hand have been ongoing for over 60 years; they came into a land they did not own and TOOK it, they didnt buy it, they didnt negotiate for it, they took it and have been trying to either displace or annihilate the entire palestinian population..the only people in the world who used to be citizens of their own country and now are without any citizenship (unless neighboring countries find the goodness in their heart to accommodate them i.e. Jordan)
as atrocious as bashar alassad’s actions are, with the betrayal of his country and his people, and as unfathomable as it may seem that worst crimes can be committed, israel is still able to trump that
this is not about jews or even israelis its about the Zionist supremacist ideology that fuels the israeli government’s actions
as a side note, i will never understand why discussions must always turn into personal attacks on people and their heritage..that is the epitome of ignorance

[…] he said at the 2011 Wikimania conference held in Haifa, “I love coming to Israel.” But it is Wales’ exchange with a Lebanese blogger that strongly calls into question Wikipedia’s public goal of offering a credible, neutral “sum […]